This really does look like the protests of a dying way of life

[andrewducker]

Couple this with the backlash against the Boy Scouts of America deciding to be anti-gay, with numerous Eagle Scouts returning their medals in disgust, Oreo coming out in favour of Pride, and numerous other examples that seem to show that LGBT acceptance has hit the tipping point in the USA.

It took until 2010 for the British Conservative Party to have a leader in favour of gay rights. I wonder if the Republican Party will follw suit in a decade, or if they will continue to stand up for their right to bigotry, and doom themselves. With 56% of Americans in favour of marriage equality, and only 36% now opposed, it's only a matter of time before it looks like a horribly marginal position.

Edit: And I forgot about Microsoft, EA, Google, Zynga, Starbucks, CBS and others coming out against The Defense Of Marriage Act. And Bill Gates donating towards a marriage equality campaign.

Comments

[emceeaich]

I'm out in Dallas, visiting my family and Saturday afternoon I was over at my brother's. He's the director of finance and facilities for a large Methodist congregation outside Dallas. Last week he was at a meeting for church finance managers.

One of the themes of the meeting was the upcoming shift in demographics. Currently 45% of working Americans are Baby Boomers, 30% are Gen X (you and I,) and the rest are Millennials and others.

In five years, they were told that the expectation is that the minority of working Americans are going to be boomers.

At the moment, I'm seeing support for marriage equality tracking around 50% for my cohort.

In five years, we're going to see a lot of changes hitting fast.

[andrewducker]

I'm sure that the UK is far ahead of the USA on this front, but apparently the number of people under 20 going to church is less than 10% of those over that age.

[emceeaich]

My brother said that the trend in the States is that the younger you are, the smaller the congregation you want and that you want to go and do good works instead of just parking one's butt in a pew in an impressive sanctuary.

[alitheapipkin.livejournal.com]

Let's hope so, sooner rather than later

[andrewducker]

It'll take time. Generations, for sure.

[snarlish.livejournal.com]

"please be advised that these 'puppets' are the gay agenda's tool for training children in the deviant practice known as 'fisting''

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

The US military are more in favour of gay relationships and believe more in peak oil than the republican party do. That is funny to me.

[khbrown.livejournal.com]

The US military are in a position where they are less subject to politicians' need to woo a small number of the electorate, and so can offer a more objective position on the future?

Has the US gone from the military industrial complex to the prison industrial complex?

[holyoutlaw.livejournal.com]

We have a larger percentage of the population in prison than any other country in the world, 2.2 million according to http://www.sentencingproject.org/template/page.cfm?id=107

(that was the first that came up in Google).

Don't know how that compares to military population

[khbrown.livejournal.com]

There was an interesting piece on ~6 million ex felons and the prohibitions on their voting in many states. The author, for better or worse, had been imprisoned for manslaughter (or US equivalent) and had studied law whilst incarcerated. He wanted to give something back; hope he does not become the next Jack Henry Abbot.

[strawberryfrog.livejournal.com]

One of the few things that makes me want to visit a Starbucks is this stance of theirs.

[khbrown.livejournal.com]

Shame that all the small businesses for whom this was never an issue will not get the publicity of the corporation 'bravely' taking a stand?

[strawberryfrog.livejournal.com]

I'm sure there are small business with all kinds of points of view. It was more that some American right-wing group was gearing up a boycott of Starbucks, and I wanted that to ineffective, even counterproductive.